Chapter 30
Rayna
Rayna stood corrected.
Well…no, actually. She lay shaking, spent, and corrected.
Dominic had said he would need hours to fuck her, and he’d bloody damn exceeded his claimed hours of stamina and kept her up into the early hours of the morning.
She admitted she’d still doubted him after they’d had sex twice in a row. She’d been so sure they’d fall asleep when he’d wiped her down, gathered her in his arms, and then coaxed sigh after satisfied sigh out of her with the softest of kisses.
Right up until he’d rolled her onto her belly and purred in her ear, “Open for me, love.”
She’d shuddered and moaned and ground shamelessly into the mattress as he kissed and whispered along her back, strumming at her clit with two unhurried fingers.
The insatiable oaf had slid into her right as her orgasm ebbed, and bloody fucking woods, she had no idea which fairy of the woods he’d traded his soul to in exchange for his big, fat, magical dick, but she’d never come so hard and so quickly right after another climax before.
At that point, she’d been sure their mattress fun was over for the night.
Except he’d folded her in half and driven her to whimpers with his slow pumping.
Then he’d pressed them chest to chest and stolen another piece of her sanity.
Rayna would have loved to claim the minutes of rest between revived her energy the way it had for Dominic.
But sometime during their third time, she’d turned into a moaning, boneless pile of putty in his hands, drugged on the way he did what he wanted to her but still always put her pleasure first. And he hadn’t seemed to care that she hadn’t been reciprocating equally.
In fact, he’d so obviously enjoyed focusing on her pleasure. And gosh, there’d been a deep, overwhelming passion in the way he’d touched her and kissed her and buried himself inside of her that was so much more intense and ruinous than just plain rough.
So it was no surprise when Rayna woke up the next morning with Dominic’s arm thrown over her, she was blissfully exhausted, her muscles aching all over. It was easily fixed under Dominic’s hands as he massaged her with body wash in the shower, followed by a mug of black coffee over breakfast.
Rayna was sipping at the bitter liquid when Dominic, sitting on the other side of the dining table, placed a triangle of toast, slathered in apricot jam Winnie had made, on her empty plate.
“Eat up,” he instructed with a tender smile.
“Dominic, I can’t eat any more,” she grumbled, setting her coffee down on the table.
She pushed the plate across to him, but he stopped it with the pads of his fingers and urged it back towards her. “You have not eaten enough—”
“I’ve eaten more than enough, actually. You already made me eat an extra slice and half of your bloody bowl of fruit. I’m not eating anymore.”
“That is only because you normally have very little breakfast. But that shall not do today.” He picked up the jammed slice from one corner. “You must eat well, and you must eat a lot.”
“Dominic—”
He flashed her a lopsided grin and held the toast before her mouth. “At the very least, have half, and I shall finish the rest. How about that, love?”
A quiet, exasperated growl rumbled in the back of her throat as she glared at him despite the weird, warm realisation fanning through her.
Love.
He’d called her that multiple times now. Darling too. And “my Rayna” earlier.
It seemed his list of endearments had expanded, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Something about the intimacy of them was…foreign. But it picked apart her stubbornness with little flicks of a seam ripper, and it was bloody unacceptable.
Why? Just why? Why did her resolve give way to him so easily?
She didn’t get it. But there wasn’t any part of her that was honestly really annoyed.
Because he was glowing.
Not just his tanned skin, but his playful smile and the warm affection deepening the golden hue of his eyes. There were actual fucking stars sparkling in his aura. He looked refreshed, so much more relaxed and comfortable and happier than he had been in a while.
It made her belly feel…floaty. Satisfied, but it was deeper than satisfaction.
She was happy that he was happy. And that made it impossible to find his insistence on feeding her bothersome.
Sighing in petulant defeat, she snatched the toast from him and tore it in half. It didn’t tear perfectly down the middle; one piece was much bigger than the other. Of course, Dominic swiped the smaller triangle from her fingers before she could offer him the bigger one.
“Dominic,” she grumbled. “That’s not half.”
“It’s very nearly half,” he said playfully and shoved the toast into his mouth.
It very well wasn’t, and she glared harder. But her traitorous mouth edged up. “You’re not doing this again.”
“Doing what?”
“This. Trying to feed me.”
He set his elbows on the table, leaning towards her. “I will feed you. I shall always feed you. With my own hands and from my own plate. That is my privilege as your husband, and you will not deny me, little witch.”
Her jaw stuttered mid-chew as her heart convulsed. But then she recalled a similar joke he’d made in the supermarket, and she rolled her eyes. “You’re not my husband.”
“But I will be.”
The unreadable depth of his stare made her movements slow to stillness.
What the actual fuck is he on about?
“That reminds me.” Dominic sat up straighter. “Where is it possible to purchase a special license? Is it still the city hall?”
Rayna swallowed the chewed lump of toast in her mouth with a cautious pinch between her brows. “A special licence for what?”
His brows dipped as if he didn’t understand her confusion. “Our marriage, Rayna.”
Silence.
A numbing ring echoed within the chamber where her thoughts usually were, but her brain was struggling to compute his words into a code she could process.
Until an imaginary hand slapped the “Enter” button, and abruptly all the mystifying zeros and ones became blaring, thrashing emotions.
Her eyes blew wide as realisation screamed in her ears nearly bursting her drums. Horror clamped around one lung, while rejection squeezed the other, and she choked on stutters and breathy sounds that might have been words if her tongue had cooperated.
Suddenly, Dominic seemed too big and too close, the space between them too small. The remaining toast splatted jam-side down on her plate as Rayna shoved herself back from the table. The wooden legs of her chair squeaked loudly against the floor.
“Excuse me?” she exclaimed. “Our what?”
Dominic’s hand hovered over the table as he narrowed his eyes, searching her face. Then he lowered them to the table, his stare clouding with seriousness.
“We are to marry,” he said firmly, like it was an indisputable fact. “As soon as possible.”
Is he joking? He was joking, wasn’t he? But none of the lines forming his determined expression twitched out of place to suggest he was pulling her leg. And that kicked her panic up a notch.
The run, run, run hammering of her pulse sent her shooting up from her seat. “No, the fuck we are not.”
“Yes, we—Rayna!”
Shaking her head, she stormed away from the table. His fingers just brushed her wrist, but she moved too quickly for him to catch her. She rounded the breakfast bar and swerved to face him from the middle of the kitchen.
He was standing at the table, his shoulders puffed out and hands in fists.
“Are you okay in the head?” she said. “We are not getting married, Dominic.”
His locked jaw pulsed before he placed himself directly opposite her, with the counter creating a barrier between them. “You will marry me, Rayna. You no longer have a choice in the matter after what we did last night.”
“What did we do? Have sex? So what? I’m not marrying you just because we fucked.”
“You should have considered that before you let me spill my seed inside you,” he snapped. “You could be with child, dammit. Do you understand that? And I will not risk you falling with child out of wedlock. No child of mine will ever be a bastard, and I certainly will not leave you unprotected.”
He stood tall and wide like a stubborn, immovable wall. “So we are getting married, Rayna. Today, tomorrow, or by the end of next week at the latest, and nothing you say will sway my decision. You and the child we may have created are my responsibility now.”
Wait, child? What the fuck is he—oh…oh. Oh.
He thought that she could be…that there might have been a chance she…
Some of her anger fizzled out into relief, and her tensed shoulders eased down.
Bloody woods, talk about jumping to conclusions. But his misunderstanding was probably more her fault than it was his.
In her eagerness to ride his dick, she’d completely neglected to consider protection and prevention. Considering he didn’t know she’d already taken precautions, his reaction was understandable. Somewhat.
“I’m not pregnant, you idiot,” she said with an exasperated bite to her words.
“It is too soon for you to know if you have conceived—”
“No, I definitely know I haven’t actually.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she spoke over him. “I have an IUD, Dominic.”
His brows dropped lower. “An IUD?”
“Yes. An IUD. A coil. We spoke about this a few weeks back, remember? Ways to prevent pregnancy. Birth control.” She waited until recognition eased him back in his stance.
“I have one inside me.” She tapped her belly with both index fingers.
“I have an IUD. So I can’t get pregnant right now. That’s why I let you come inside me.”
Rayna could see him processing what she’d said in his distant stare before he blinked and straightened and rolled his jaw. “So, you are not…”
“No. Not a chance.”
Well…a ninety-nine point something percent chance she wasn’t, but that was more than good enough for her.
Something flickered over Dominic’s face. It dampened the piercing gleam of his gaze, and he appeared almost sad. Disappointed. Dare she say even hurt.